BC Apologizes to Doukhobors for ‘a Shameful Part of Our History’

Taken from her family and imprisoned by the British Columbia government when she was nine, Vera Lapshinoff waited nearly 70 years for the apology the province made last week.

While Lapshinoff hopes that what the government did to her and other children of Sons of Freedom Doukhobors is remembered and never repeated, her feelings about the apology from Attorney General Niki Sharma, and the financial recognition package she announced, are at best mixed.

“I’m not sure how I feel about it,” Lapshinoff said over the phone from Krestova, a Doukhobor community in the Slocan Valley in southeastern B.C.

“It means really nothing,” she said. Recovering from COVID-19, she watched the event online. “It in no way changes my life.... I’ve lived without it for this long and I shall continue.”

On Feb. 1, in front of a live audience of some 250 people in Castlegar and a similar number online, Sharma made the apology and announced a $10-million compensation package.

A day later she repeated the apology in Grand Forks.

“It was wrong and it should not have happened,” Sharma said in Castlegar to applause.

She called the apology “heartfelt” and said too many people, including the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors, had suffered injustices perpetrated by the government.

“This is a shameful part of our history,” Sharma said, recognizing the trauma the government caused. “I’m driven to tears to comprehend the horrors experienced by children of your community.... Though time has passed, I know the pain remains.”

She announced a $10-million recognition package that included $5 million for cultural and educational programs, $3.7 million for mental health services and wellness programs and $1.2 million for research and archival work. There was no direct compensation for individuals.

Between 1953 and 1959 the province apprehended more than 200 Doukhobor children and confined them at a former tuberculosis sanatorium in New Denver. They were apprehended because their parents — Sons of Freedom Doukhobors who opposed government policies and regulations — either were in jail or refused to send them to school.

A B.C. Office of the Ombudsperson report in 1999 found that what happened to those children, who were permitted only limited visits with their parents, had been “unjust and oppressive.” The report quoted survivors, including some describing physical, mental and sexual abuse.

It called on the government to apologize and compensate them.

That call was renewed last summer by Ombudsperson Jay Chalke in a followup report that led Sharma to commit to make the apology and announce “a formal recognition package” during the fall session of the legislature.

In November Premier David Eby cancelled a planned apology in favour of making it later when survivors and their family members could be present. Eby took responsibility for his office “screwing up” the planning.

At the Castlegar event the crowd sang the Lord’s Prayer and a hymn, "Sleep On, Beloved Ancestors," in Russian. “Sleep, may your hearts be at ease,” it says in translation. “We who live on will continue your journey toward wisdom and peace.”

One of the verses says, “Today we remember your courage, we honour your strength and your pain, and with our hearts linked together, prepare to move forward again.”

“It was so real to me in the room looking at the survivors, particularly after the songs that they sang,” Sharma said on the phone that afternoon, “the real pain that was sitting in them and the many years they’ve waited for government to acknowledge the harm that was done and to step forward and acknowledge the pain.”

It’s important to acknowledge historic wrongs so that people can move forward and hopefully feel helped through their pain, Sharma said. “I felt, like many of the people in the room, very emotional about doing that and just really hoping they were words that they wanted to hear.”

Everyone can appreciate the trauma for children being torn from their parents, she said. “That’s something I saw in people’s faces today, that they’ve never forgotten and have lived their life with that pain,” she said.

“They forcefully took kids away from their parents because they didn’t believe in the beliefs that those people held, that the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors held, and that’s wrong. Government should never do that to people.”

A member of the group Lost Voices of New Denver, Kassandra Lawal, said she’s hopeful the apology will be healing for all Doukhobors.

“I’m really proud that we followed through to this almost conclusion,” she said. “It will feel like a conclusion once it’s delivered officially by the premier in Victoria.”

Robert Chursinoff, 51, was raised in the Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ orthodox Doukhobor community in Castlegar. His father’s family were Sons of Freedom Doukhobors and his grandfather spent three years in prison in Agassiz, arrested on the way to a protest.

A drummer who has toured with Tegan and Sara, the Be Good Tanyas and Australian pop star Ben Lee, Chursinoff is also the author of The Descendants, a novel set in the Kootenays that draws on Doukhobor experience to tell a story of intergenerational trauma.

“I wasn’t imprisoned in New Denver, neither was my family, but those actions affected the entire Doukhobor community,” he said, referring to both the Sons of Freedom resistance to government authority and the response.

Even Doukhobors who weren’t involved in the Sons of Freedom were subject to stereotypes about Doukhobors protesting naked and burning things, Chursinoff said. “I still have people say that shit.”

Imprisoning children for their parents’ actions was cruel and inhumane and needed to be apologized for, he said, but it was good that the apology also acknowledged the effect on the wider Doukhobor community.

Now living in Vancouver, he wasn’t present for the apology, but family members were. “My mom said she was very pleased with it,” he said. His aunt, who was raised in a Sons of Freedom family and left the community for four decades, cried. “She’s had a lot of trauma around that.”

He’s also been following the discussion on Doukhobor Facebook pages. While some people have raised concerns about the financial recognition being insufficient, he said, most are pleased. “It’s overwhelmingly positive.”

A 57-year-old descendant of two New Denver survivors who are now dead, Lorraine Walton, was present at both apologies and said it was an emotional experience for her and others in attendance.

“It took 71 years to get here and we felt it was a heartfelt apology that was delivered by the attorney general,” she said.

The details of the financial recognition are unclear and there are lots of questions in the community, she said, noting there does not appear to be any direct compensation for individuals outside of the wellness fund.

For elderly survivors, now between 75 and 83 years old, even that is much too late, added Walton, who grew up in the Doukhobor community of New Settlement. “Time is of the essence here,” she said. “They don’t need therapy. They need financial compensation.”

She said she hopes the government will rethink its approach to compensation and provide it in a way that would bring real peace and healing to survivors and their families.

Lapshinoff also had questions about how the compensation is being handled and doubts the value of spending it on wellness programs. “I’m 76 years old,” she said. “Give me some counselling to make my life better? I mean, really.”

Brought up with non-materialist values, it feels “a little seedy” to be concerned about money at all, she said, but it would be better for the government to focus on the 200 children who were taken from their families and their descendants. “I would have liked to see a lot more focus on the actual Sons of Freedom survivors, their families, what the issue was.”

Sharma said there was much discussion and several reports to help the government understand what the community wanted. Her ministry will keep working to make sure they got it right and the money goes where it’s needed, she said. “My big hope is it gives some people peace they’ve been waiting for a long time to have.”

While she was glad to deliver the apology, Sharma said, it really should have happened decades ago. She also said the government regrets November’s cancelled plan but that in the end it was more meaningful to make the apology in the community.

“The delay resulted in a better result, I think, for the community, which I’m grateful for,” she said. “Obviously we regret that that happened in the way that it did last session.”

The government is planning a formal apology in the provincial legislature, which Eby is to deliver Feb. 27.

This is the full text of the apology Sharma delivered:

“British Columbia honours the diversity and contributions of all communities of this province, and is committed to a society that is fair and just for all. We recognize and acknowledge that in our history too many have suffered injustices that have negatively impacted their lives. This includes members of the Sons of Freedom Doukhobor community.

“British Columbia has benefited from the efforts and generosity of the Doukhobor people who settled in the Kootenay Boundary region of our province. The Doukhobors arrived in Canada in 1899, after enduring persecution in Russia. Although they were newcomers whose beliefs and customs were different from those of their neighbours, they managed, along with their neighbours, to build a flourishing community. We recognize with thanks the many contributions Doukhobor Canadians have made in building British Columbia.

“In the first half of the 20th century, the provincial government levied fines against the Sons of Freedom community and seized communal property for community member infractions that included school absenteeism. Between 1931 and 1959, hundreds of Sons of Freedom people were convicted and handed sentences up to three years. Along with those convicted, hundreds of their children were placed in non-ward care in various provincial institutions and facilities, such as the New Denver school, by the Province of British Columbia.

“Between 1953 and 1959, all Sons of Freedom children who could be located were removed from their families and placed in forced-education facilities, where they were mistreated both physically and psychologically. These actions caused immense trauma and stigma, and created anxiety for the broader Doukhobor community and even to families whose children were not seized.

“This is not a proud history. The Province of British Columbia recognizes the stigma and trauma experienced by the Sons of Freedom and the broader Doukhobor community. And so today, on behalf of the Province of British Columbia, we acknowledge and apologize for the past injustices that were committed by the Province of British Columbia.

“Further building on this apology, the Province of British Columbia will be contributing $10 million to support legacy initiatives recommended by the Sons of Freedom community to help provide a deeper understanding of the impact of historical injustices, what is needed to prevent similar occurrences in the future and to help those impacted by these historical wrongs. In addition, funding will be allocated to provide counselling services and other wellness initiatives.

“This apology and these initiatives are predicated on the hope that those impacted by these injustices are able to access the support they need to heal, and to ensure that such violations of human rights are prevented from happening ever again in this province.”